Posted
by
kdawson
on Saturday October 17, 2009 @04:42PM
from the gift-wrapped dept.

beadwindow writes "NASA's IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft has made the first all-sky maps of the heliosphere and the results have taken researchers by surprise. The maps are bisected by a bright, winding ribbon of unknown origin: 'This is a shocking new result,' says IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute. 'We had no idea this ribbon existed — or what has created it. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised.' Another NASA scientist notes, '"This ribbon winds between the two Voyager spacecraft and was not observed by either of them.'"

I predict that further study will reveal the ribbon encircles a giant gift-wrapped present under an enormous Christmas tree.
These were not discovered previously, since the present was hidden in the cosmic closet...

It's good we discovered this early on. If we were already launching interstellar ships, there's a very real danger that at least one crew member's latent ESP abilities would start to run amok after their ship tried entering the ribbon. And, even worse, it'd probably be one of the ship captain's oldest friends.

"Please wear this ribbon on your planetary system in order to help us raise awareness. Awareness is such a precious commodity in galaxies of all colors, shapes and sizes, that we feel it only proper to honor the awareness that is within us all by taking this opportunity to mark those systems with nascent awarenesses with a ribbon. Hopefully by comparing our pre-aware planetary systems we can come to appreciate our own awareness and the source of that awareness, whatever form you may believe that it takes. Remember, it takes a spiral arm to raise a planetary system. Thank you again for raising awareness with this ribbon."

Why is this modded funny? This is more evidence that Pastafarianism is the One True Religion. While the theorists scramble to explain the FSM's Right Arm, us believers get angry at the blindness of the other humans. What sacrilege to explain away all the evidence smack before your face with mumbo jumbo and treat our religion as a joke!